Hi hi. I want to tell you something today. I’m not sure what it is that compells me to tell you my innermost thoughts on this monday morning, after all, I realise this isn’t Twitter, but stick with me anyway.
I love writing this column every week. I have a great time coming up with ideas of what to write about, and even the physical writing of it is lekker. But every now and then I just like one column a little more than others. I know it’s probably wrong, and one should like all ones children the same amount, but I can’t help myself.
The Pastafarian one was a favourite, and I also particularly enjoyed writing the one about the scientists who went looking for the world’s most boring day. And now I can add this little column to my list. It’s a personal favourite.
I hope I haven’t built it up too much and now it’s disappointing. Oh dear.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick
THE LAWS OF LIFE
Our world is governed by a complex set of theories, laws and rules. There are the super-complicated ones that are best left to the rocket scientists, like e=mc2, the theory of relativity and how my new DVD player works. And then there are the other simpler ones that we live by day to day.
Like the law of gravity, which will see you land on your arse if you drink too much tequila. The law of threes, which ensures that in the very same week that the love of your life dumps you, you prang your car, and set your kitchen on fire. There’s also The Five Second Rule, which states that if you drop food on the ground, as long as you pick it up within five seconds it’s still safe to eat.
And of course there’s Murphy’s Law, which guarantees that if you wear even a single item of white clothing on any given day, you’ll spill coffee all over yourself before nine am.
Most of these laws are age old, going as far back as Newton, Einstein and the dinosaurs. The Rule of Thumb, for example (if you wash your car it’s guaranteed to rain) has been around since the beginning of thumbs.
So I was quite excited when I recently discovered a more contemporary rule that seems to have only popped into existence over the last decade or so. It’s called Rule 34.
Rule 34 is a now generally accepted Internet rule that states that pornography, or sexually related material exists for every conceivable subject. Basically in layman’s terms, you name it, there’s porn for it. And if not, then porn will be made of it as soon as The Internet hears that it hasn’t been done yet. (See Rule 34-B.)
I checked, and it’s true. Type ‘Spiderman’ plus ‘sex’ into the Google machine, or ‘Coffee Mug’ plus ‘sex’, even the search ‘Club Sandwich’ plus ‘sex’ returned over two million results. Try it if you dare, but remember once you’ve seen something, you can never unsee it. A lesson I learnt the hard way when I typed in ‘HB pencil’ plus ‘sex’. Scarred for life I tell you. So perhaps if you don’t have a strong constitution, or if you feel an affinity towards HB pencils, it’s best to just take my word for it, Rule 34 is out there, I promise, and it’s kind of scary.
Of course whatever you invoke Rule 34 on has to be a concrete or representable object. So you can’t call Rule 34 on existentialism, for example. That wouldn’t work. But nice try you loopholers out there.
I spent a fair amount of time researching the rule, and was well-prepared to invoke Rule 34 on Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and The Old Spice Guy, on behalf of all the ladies and interested gentlemen parties out there, but it turns out Rule 34 was invoked on all of them ages ago, in many different positions and on dozens of different occasions.
As with most rules, however, there is one exception, and the exception to Rule 34 is an ironic one. In that you cannot Rule 34 the Rule 34. Although if we give the internet long enough, I’m pretty sure someone will figure out a way.
It’s a good thing the article wasn’t about fight club, coz, you know…
Doesn’t matter how prude or crude you are, if you’re on the net, you’re bound to come across Rule 34. Nice one Paige.
Radio 702 10th Nov 2011, “Orion Cold Turkey Packaging” (here in Cape Town) was featured by John Robbie.
I tried to google it later in the day as I only caught fragments of it on the car radio.
Whether I tried
+Ryan +storage +halaal +pig +heart +belgium
or as I later corrected it to
+Orion +storage +halaal +pig +heart +belgium
,and using either Google or Yahoo!, I could not find the original article, but very many substantiations (in the 1000’s) of rule 34.
Three lessons learned from this
1) Google finds mostly crap, Yahoo! is much more selective
2) Both search engines ranking has been destroyed by key-word spoofing
3) Porn must account for 25% of all web searches to get so high in the rankings.
The actual story is in the URL for this post above.
That’s fantastic Beer Key, practical execution of rule 34? I’m loving it.
Actually, rule 34 did in fact rule 34 itself…observe the following link
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSYiLZVMkjWjpdGzPB3h7Fyl0dpiJP7mTtjDPzztH96EAPxPyY26g
Anonymous, that’s fantastic. it’s so comforting to know we can always count on the internet.
thank you.
Thought you might enjoy some of these, they were meant to get in just in time for the end of “Womens’ Month”, but I don’t find a blog of yours with this theme :-
Murphy’s Law : The Love-Life Corollaries
1. All the good ones are taken. (Charlie’s Law)
2. If the person isn’t taken, there’s a reason. (Boyne’s Law)
3. The nicer someone is, the farther away they are from you. (Pauline Principle)
4. Availability x Brains x Beauty / Separation = Constant. (Grand Unified Theory)
5. Idol curiosity is preferable to idle worship.
6. Stretch marks are acceptable on a man, especially so on his wallet.
7. A man in the house is worth two in the street.
8. The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can’t stand years later.
9. The best way to keep a man : though intimate hugs keep him close – nothing beats a headlock.
10. Before you find your handsome prince, you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs.
11. It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
12. There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.